cultural psychology title page steven j. heine. chapter 1 culture and human nature chapter 1 norton...
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CULTURALPSYCHOLOGY
Title page
STEVEN J. HEINE
Culture andHuman Nature
Chapter 1
Norton Media Library
STEVEN J. HEINE
Building the argument Psychological processes are shaped by culture
Constraints and affordances of our biological self
Same across culture
Key question To what extent should ways of _____look
similar around world because of basic brain structure, and to what extent should they look different because of divergent experiences (culture)
Universal vs. culturally variable psychologies.
What is culture? Can we define it?
Shweder’s definition “Culture is a reality lit up by morally enforceable
conceptual scheme composed of values (desirable goals) and causal beliefs (including ideas about means-ends connections) that is exemplified or instantiated in practice”
Culture serves as a flexible learning system that transforms basic biological capacities into meaningful thoughts and behaviours shared by members of the cultural group (Shweder, 1995).
Cultural membership does not determine individual response
Within cultures there is extreme variability
Is culture uniquely human? http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=uhacaxJ240Q
What is uniquely human? Imitation of prestige
2 capacities: Ability to consider the perspective of others Ability to communicate with language
Theory of mindPeople understand that others have minds that are
different from their own and others have intentions that are different from their own
When do we develop theory of mind?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiT7HFj2gv4
Emulative learning: interested in what the model is doing, not what it is intended to do.
Imitative learning: the learner internalizes the model’s goals and behavioral strategies
Fig. 1.1
Fig. 1.2
Big brains allow for cultural learning Encephalization quotient: ratio of the brain
weight to that of a comparable animal with same body size:
4.6 (chimps 2.5) 16% of our basal metabolism
Three hypotheses1. Fruit
2. Extractive food source
3. Social world
Social brain hypothesis The socialness of humans involved complex
power struggles, relationships, nepotism, reciprocity.
The primates most successful at navigating the intricate web of social relationships more likely to attract mates, secure resources, and protect themselves.
Some evidence Neocortex ratio through fMRI
Looked at all species to test these three theories
Fig. 1.3 top
Fig. 1.3 bottom
Social complexity and group size Child rearing 50,000 years ago we began to walk upright. Our pelvis’ changed to do this. Our babies needed to be born more altricial
(vulnerable) With upright walking, we began hunting in groups
and living with larger clans. Social relatedness needed to care for very altricial
young.
150 Dunbar (1993) used that data to plot and predict
average human group size based on neocortex size. 147.8
Surveyed ethnographic data and found historically we lived in overnight camps of 35-40, tribes of 1,500-2,000 and clans of 148.
150 is average number people produced from 4 generations of offspring. (what we might create in our lives)
Peer pressure and 150 Hutterites in south Dakota divide
communities when they reach 150
Gor-Tex builds a new plant when employment reaches 150
Institutionalized structure needed for groups larger than this.
Is the mind independent from or intertwined with culture What do you think?
Doctrine of original multiplicity
Original multiplicity The unity of human beings is not to be found
in that which makes us common and all the same, but rather in a universal original multiplicity, which makes each of us so variegated that others become accessible and imaginable to us through some aspect of our own complex self. (Shweder 1991)
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=martin+luther+king+jr.+i+have+a+dream+speech&n=21&ei=utf-8&js=1&fr=yfp-t-501&fr2=tab-web&tnr=20&vid=000167086979
Four famous papers Harry Triandis (1989) cultural dimensions of the self
concept that can be observed cross culturally Jerome Bruner (1990) psychology can only be
understood from the meaning we derive from our worlds
Rick Shweder (1990) mind and culture are intertwined
Markus and Kitayama (1991) psychological processes like emotions can be viewed cross culturally through self concept.